Day-11 (Oct 30) Cruising

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Hello from the Atlantic Ocean. It is Saturday and we are sure that many of our readers are grateful this day of the week has arrived. However on this ship the best way to tell that it is a weekend is simply to look at the floor. Each evening at midnight they remove a rectangular piece of carpet from each elevator’s floor and insert a new rectangle with the new day of the week. This morning’s elevator said “Saturday”, so that is about the only way we know the difference.

We slept in this morning and had a late breakfast. Then it was off to a cooking demonstration in the lounge. The head chef had some of his staff demonstrate how they make the cute carved fruit figurines, how they prepare sushi, the making of tiramisu, and the cooking of a portabella mushroom. Frankly, it is not likely that we will do any of this, but the fruit was interesting.

The seas have been very smooth although today there is a very slight roll to the ship which we can feel occasionally. The skies are partly sunny today with temperatures probably in the upper 70s. The captain announced that there are 2 tropical storms (one by the Azores and one headed for the Caribbean) in the Atlantic, but that neither is expected to affect our cruise.

Jim has been making regular appearances on the walking track since the weather has been so nice. The rest of us have been resting and staying out of his way on the track. This is at least partially because the ship has two treadmills set up in the Main Promenade to try to keep someone walking all the way from the Canary Islands to Ft Lauderdale. This is part of a fund raiser activity for Make-a-Wish with the goal to be able to give three $5,000 wishes. There will be lots of activities the rest of the week, and of course we know donations are Tax Deductible. :- ) We will see if he keeps up the walking after his treadmill slot tomorrow evening.

Today Janet, Kathy, and David went to the ice dancing show down on deck-3. We weren’t sure if the motion of the ship would cause any problem, but it was fine. The seating capacity is around 600 and it appeared to be at least 105% occupied. The show was nice but not spectacular except for their soloist. She did some pretty remarkable tricks in more of an acrobatic show in skates from a hoola-hoop suspended above the ice.

Today also is Kathy’s and Jim’s 30th anniversary. It corresponded with the second Formal Dress dinner, so we had quite a celebration in the dining room. Our main courses at dinner were Eggplant Parmesan, Lamb Shank, Chicken Marsalis, and Sirloin Steak. Just before dessert they brought a special anniversary cake for Jim and Kathy and the nearby waiters sang “happy anniversary” to them.

Janet has caught a head cold so she adjourned early to get a long night’s sleep, but the rest of us went to the theater to hear a lady sing love songs from Big Bands to Broadway and everywhere in between. She was pretty good. Just prior to the show they held an auction as a Make-a-Wish fund raiser. They were auctioning off items like “dinner at the Captain’s table”, a “tour of the engine room”, a “tour of the bridge and getting to blow the ships horn”, and other items which are normally not available to passengers. They raised about $4,000 for our audience and were going to do the same thing for the people for the second dinner seating prior to the second show. So that made a good sized dent in their goal for the cruise.

This evening, when we returned to the cabin, there was a bat flying around our room (see picture). Well, we will see you tomorrow and will check again to see what the elevators say.

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